Any of the above three reasons are enough to dismiss (or at least transfer to a different jurisdiction) the conspiratorially-minded, frivolous lawsuit designed to intimidate scholars into not criticizing Jacobovici’s highly speculative films about archaeology.

(To his credit, his company’s non-archaeological documentaries are quite good, but his archaeology documentaries are roundly dismissed by scholars in the field, both in the US and Israel, with the exception of those scholars appearing in them or profiting somehow by working with Jacobovici on his archaeo-fantasies.)

Go and read the motions to dismiss Mr. Jacobovici’s most recent lawsuit against a scholar who once found herself working with him.

This will be the live blog of the premier of Simcha Jacobovici’s “The Resurrection Tomb Mystery” on the Discovery Channel on Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 9:00 PM Central.

This blog will be updated frequently and will be corrected/altered throughout the hour. (Please forgive misspellings and grammatical errors, as this is rapid fire.) I shall edit and make the text into a more coherent narrative when it’s over.

BILL TARANT (of General Electric Inspection Technologies)’s remote’s camera is very cool. The technology involved is legit. (Too bad it’s debut is with sensationalist documentary). I want one, or want Bill Tarant to sell me one. Wonder how much those cost?

Rome? Why Rome?

And why are we looking for evidence of Christianity? Do we want to find this? Predisposition anyone??

ROBIN JENSEN – expert on Early Christian Art

Earliest Christian symbols date to no earlier than the 4th Century

NOTE THAT THEY TOOK THE FISH THAT IS POINTING UP IN THE CATACOMBS AND ROTATED IT TO THE LEFT!!!! (I have a bad feeling about this.)

Robin Jensen establishes “Sign of Jonah” as symbol of the resurrection of Jesus. But notice she says nothing about SIMCHA’S ‘discovery’. She just provides background.

9:17: Cool music. Setting up to drill.

Simcha wants discovery!

9:18: Drilling. Drilling. Drilling.

Simcha wants to “Puts around with it all.”

Simcha just wants to get in.

9:19 They’re in.

9:19 Commercial

9:24 Back.

Walter Klassen shows up with amazing technology.

Again with the Joseph of Arimathea? That’s the THIRD time he’s been mentioned with absolutely NO evidence of him at all.

Two holes. One to see and one to search.

Simcha’s moment of truth.

Remember, Simcha has claimed that this is all live and real time.

Simcha is a pilot. (I think he said that.)

CGI is well done. Simcha’s CGI folks get an A+ (especially since we see so much of it in the documentary. And the press. And the book. And the website.)

So the niche closest to the door is the owner of the tomb?

Again with Arimathea? That’s FOUR now.

Intro snake camera.

Simcha is looking for a name.

They find ornate ossuary. But that is not evidence of Arimathea.

Others? Who?

Design in the center is a Nephesh? A symbolic reference to the afterlife?

They appear to be looking for something that ‘s not there.

Next niche with 3 ossuaries.

Simcha explains that we should expect to find a graffito. Prophetic!

MARA Greek inscription. Now Mara is buried here?

Note who is in that shot.

Now more of the Mariamme rehash. Like the book, much of it is Lost Tomb rehash.

Oops. Breakdown and stuck.

9:30 Cut to commercial.

(Commercial break side note: Remember – we should not expect to find graven images on Jewish tombs. we should find vessels (which we find on many ossuaries from Jerusalem) and geometric shapes like circles squares, triangles, Xs, and braids.)

9:34 Back!

Discussing the break to the equipment.

How are they going to get that out of there? They can’t go in the tomb.

Simcha sits sad and dejected.

They finally pulled out.

Now they’re looking back in the tomb.

Niche 3 Human skeletal remains.

The camera posses over a pelvis, but the re-enactment cuts to a skull.

Last niche. Last Chance.

Rami Arav points where he wants to look. Remember, Simcha says this is real-time.

Simcha finds something.

Walter spots a pair of intersecting lines, but calls it a cross.

“Ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya ya!”

Correct: 4th century CE

If the cross… speculative and circular.

Better cut to commercial so people don’t think about it to hard.

Maybe when they come back from commercial, they’ll just assume they’ve found a cross and move on.

9:39: Commercial

9:42 Back

Wonder what we’ll find at the climax of the show?

Simcha: We have a pillar, a “Christian cross”, and a Mara inscription

But Tabor wants more.

SIMCHA SEES SOMETHING!

SIMCHA MAKES THE DISCOVERY!

There’ the vocals of the “Jesus Face” video.

It’s a NEPHESH (RAMI). Great thinking Rami!!! Stick with that!

“Handles!” Yes. Stick with that too!!!

SEE WHEN THEY TURNED IT TO THE SIDE, THEY CALLED IT A WHALE, A FISH

THE SYMBOL OF XN RZRXN. (That’s shorthand for Christian Resurrection.)

Cut to CGI Photoshopped image!!!

THAT IS NOT THE IMAGE!!! THAT IS COMPLETELY PHOTOSHOPPED!! SHOW THE REAL IMAGE

There HOLY CRAP! LOOK AT THEM OVERLAP THE TAILS AND DIGITALLY INK THE “FISH IN THE MARGINS”.

NOW THEY’RE GLOWING! SHOW THE ACTUAL PHOTOGRAPH!!!!

AND THEY KEEP SHOWING THE PHOTOSHOP IMAGE. AND IT’S ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS ON ITS SIDE!!!! OUT OF ORIENTATION.

Tabor explains that they have the ‘earliest xn evidence ever.’

AND THEY KEEP SHOWING THE PHOTOSHOP IMAGE ON ITS SIDE!!!!!!!!!!

AND NOW, THEY’VE FOUND THAT THEY WANTED TO FIND.

Cut to Kloner’s photographs.

Are they mixing up the ossuaries?

FISH?

And there is ARIMATHEA AGAIN! Where the heck is the evidence for Arimathea?????? NOTHING. Yet how many mentions now, FIVE?

9:48 Commercial.

Ouch. that hurt my head.

WTF?? DID YOU SEE THEM DIGITALLY INK THE CIRCLES/OVALS IN THE BORDERS? HOLY CRAP! THEY SHOWED AN OVAL, THAT WASN’T CLOSED, AND THEY INKED IT WITH GLOWING INK INTO OVERLAPPED TAILS LIKE JESUS FISH ON THE BACKS OF CARS!!!!!I feel like I’m driving through Colorado Springs!

The tomb where Jesus is dead and buried only a few meters away is celebrated by Christians who believe he is resurrected?

95% convinced.

James Tabor is the 95%! :)

Charlesworth speaks:

WHALE. HUMAN BEING.

Good grief. The sound editing on Charlesworth’s quote was horrid. They chopped that up into a gillion pieces. I wonder what he really said?

[Here’s what I added after re-watching the recording. This is Charlesworth’s quote as it stands in the documentary:

“The significance of what we have seen for the first time, and any eye has seen for 2000 years, is that we have a <em>whale</em>, with a mouth that’s closed, not a whale that’s swallowing someone, and out of that mouth comes a human being. [cut] This symbol here in Jerusalem, near where Jesus was crucified, not far away, is the symbol of the [terrible cut] belief that Jesus [cut] is raised. [cut] This is within [cut] decades [cut] of Jesus’ death.”

It’s almost like he originally said something other than ‘symbol of the belief in Jesus…’ It also sounds like he originally said something other than ‘This is within decades of Jesus’ death.” The question is: what did he originally say? Simcha and Tabor said elsewhere that ‘they probably heard him preach” and “they probably knew him.” Did Charlesworth originally echo that and say something like, “This is within the time of Jesus’ death?” or “This is within the first decade of Jesus’ death?” And why did they change it? All I know is he got butchered. ]

Tabor explains how it is possible that Christians celebrated Jesus’ SPIRITUAL resurrection, while the dead and buried bones of Jesus are just meters away.

Summary is awful. Someone should debunk that in 2 minutes in a CNN interview.

10:00 DONE

Summary:

40 minutes of digging and rehash of Jesus Family Tomb

15 minutes of speculation.

The narrator states at the end that now it’s up to scholars. The problem is that scholars debunked this bunk a month ago, literally 2 weeks after the book was released.

We kept being told, “Just wait for the documentary. You’ll see the actual pictures.” But there were none. There were better pictures on the website. The documentary kept showing a rotated vessel and inked circles to make them look like ‘fish’. And you now see why they rotated the fish from the catacombs scene. It’s a visual trick to prime the brain to see similar fish.

Again, they found what they wanted to find. They knew better. They said “Nephesh.” They said, “Handles.” And yet that didn’t fit what they wanted to find. So, the Photoshopped it and rotated it and inked the circles in the margins to make Jesus fish and sold it to the audience.

Then, they translated the inscription into saying precisely what they needed it to say to support what they wanted to find.

We learned nothing new. There were some dramatic reenactments. The camera and robotic are were cool. Klassen and Tarant are to be commended. Hopefully they can be used in a real excavation in the future.

But I’m very sorry: there is no evidence of Christianity in either of those tombs. They resorted to showing digitally manipulated images (the so-called “Jonah fish’ rotated to its side, AND the glowing Jesus fishes) to try and convince the viewer. But only those who really want to believe will be convinced.

I seriously kept waiting for Giorgio Tsoukalos to show up and make my joy complete and say that aliens, not Joseph of Arimathea, put the ossuaries in there.

And what was with all the references to Joseph of Arimathea? If I didn’t know any better, based upon the continued references to Joseph of Arimathea, and yet ABSOLUTELY ZERO evidence presented about him, I’d argue that there WAS originally a segment on evidence for Joseph of Arimathea that got edited out, perhaps when Discovery cut the time from 2 hours to 1 hour, or perhaps when certain images of mailboxes and green signs appeared in the internet. Either way, it was a lot of narrative investment in talk about Joseph of Arimathea without a single shred of evidence to support it.
(SEE UPDATE BELOW!)

They should have reported the graffito inscription of the rather interesting inscribed Greek vessel on the side of the ossuary. That would have been a solid contribution to archaeology. Problem is, Discovery Channel doesn’t want to buy a documentary titled, “Rather Interesting Inscribed Greek Vessel: DECODED.” They want “JESUS SPIRITUALLY, YET NOT PHYSICALLY RESURRECTION TOMB MYSTERY.”

What’s interesting is that they blamed believing xns last time around for not wanting to believe Simcha had found the dead and buried bones of Jesus. Weirdly, this time around, they’ve been saying that Christians should want to believe this because they found evidence of Resurrection. However, as Dr. Tabor explained, they found evidence of SPIRITUAL resurrection and exaltation, not PHYSICAL resurrection. How are xns going to react to the claim that Jesus wasn’t PHYSICALLY resurrected? Doubting Thomas please sit down. You never touched him.

And we can expect Simcha to say, “See the xns don’t WANT to believe this discovery,” and then from that attempt to deduce that therefore his discoveries and conclusions are true.

But, of course, it’s not just people of faith who are disagreeing, but scholars.

I do like how they’ve already ditched the Jonah stick man argument and are now desperately looking for the letters of the name of Jonah in a Rorschach Test. Is someone trying to save face? When you dig yourself in a hole, put down the shovel.

Final thoughts:

A) There is no ‘Jonah’s Great Fish.’ It’s some sort of Greek vessel like we find on dozens of other ossuaries from Jerusalem. The image used in the documentary was actually a CGI, Photoshopped composite turned on its side to make it look more like a fish. See here.

B) There are no ‘fish in the margins.’ They are simple ovals or circles that surround the image along with a number of standard geometric shapes, including a simple braided border, stacked triangles, squares with X’s in them, and simple ovals or circles. In fact, the image of the so-called ‘fish in the margins’ that Simcha’s team had first released on their website was shown to be Photoshopped; They added ‘digital ink’ to extend the lines of the ovals to make them look like fish with crossed tails like the ‘Jesus fish’ you’d find on the backs of cars. They added glowing ink in the documentary.

C) There is no cross. It is nothing more than a pair or intersecting parallel lines.

D) They claim that the inscription possesses the Tetragrammaton, the personal name of God, but the only scholars who read the personal name of God are already working with Simcha on this or previous projects.

E) Finally, there is no ‘Jonah.’ They had been arguing that the half-spherical base of the vessel was the ‘seaweed wrapped head of stick figure Jonah.’ But, this was SO absurd, they just last night, they’ve changed their position and are arguing that a bunch of randomly etched lines spell out the Hebrew name of “Jonah.” The problem with this is that the first three letters of the name of Jonah in Hebrew, yod, waw, and nun, are essentially differing lengths of straight or slightly curved lines. They are looking at these simple lines and trying to make letters out of them like one would look at a Rorschach Test and make it be something. Their previous “stick figure Jonah’s head’ argument was so weak, they appear to have ‘cut bait’ (no pun intended) and have moved on to “Rorschach Test Archaeology.”

F) There were no additional images to convince scholars of anything. This was very disappointing. The website has better photos. I learned nothing new about the claims tonight. And since the Jesus Discovery website doesn’t show all of the images that are available (like the one peering behind Ossuary 5 that reveals the handles at the top of the vessel on Ossuary 6 – Remember, fish don’t have handles!), then we’re left with beig forced to conclude that there IS no more evidence, and the reason that they kept referring to the Photoshopped CGI image is because any closer look at the photos will contradict their conclusions.

G) At the end of the day, the entire documentary is essentially an apologetic for the belief in a spiritually, and not physically resurrected Jesus. In 2007, Simcha claimed he had discovered the bones of a very dead Jesus buried next to his wife and his family. This year, Simcha claims to have found the earliest ‘evidence’ of Christian celebration of a resurrected Jesus. This means that we must ignore biblical accounts like those of ‘Doubting Thomas,’ who wanted to touch the body of the physically resurrected Jesus, and redefine ‘resurrection’ as the ‘spiritual resurrection and exhalation.’ Simcha and Dr. Tabor seem to be setting out to find apologetic evidence for a set of modern beliefs that understands Jesus as ‘spiritually’ resurrected, but not ‘physically’ resurrected.”

Because they obviously don’t have the evidence, and yet they claim this evidence, the question we must ask becomes this: who would benefit most from the discovery of first century evidence of a Christian belief in a spiritually, but not physically resurrected Jesus?

Who do you know who believes in a physically unresurrected, but spiritually resurrected and exalted Jesus?

The answer to that question will tell us much more about the possible motive behind Simcha and Dr. Tabor’s otherwise circumstantial and highly spurious conclusions.

OK. Done. Time for bed.

In the words of Gerald Ford, let us hope “our long national nightmare is over.” :)

UPDATE:April 26, 2012 – Jim West is reporting that in the Canadian 90-minute version of the documentary, there IS a segment dedicated to the signs on the apartment mailbox and buzzer that have little signs that say הרמתי, or “Arimathea” on them.

The green sign above mailbox 4 appears to be a little different shade of green than the rest of the green mailbox signs. Likewise, the little green sign to the left of the buzzer seems to be a little lighter shade of green than the rest of the buzzer signs. A screen capture image of the apartment mailbox and buzzer system from the Canadian Jesus Discovery documentary appears to reveal that the small green doorbell sign that read “Arimathea” may have been added/replaced more recently than the other signs above and below it (which would explain the slightly different color and typeset/font).

What is more, note that when the camera zooms in on the buzzer, there appears to be an over-sized sign that reads הרמתי, which is so large that it now partially covers the speaker!!! Likewise, the names of the other folks appear to be blank, while the massive הרמתי sign is clearly visible.

So, based upon this evidence, I shall speculate (and mind you this is only speculation) the following:

It appears that someone replaced the standard/old green sign (that appear on nearly all of the other mailboxes) on the Apartment #4 mailbox with a more recent, slightly lighter green הרמתי (“Arimathea”) sign in a slightly different typeset/font. (We don’t know who or why it was added/replaced, but it appears to have been done.)

It appears that someone replaced the smaller standard/old green sign (that appear on nearly all of the other buzzers) in the buzzer/doorbell signs with a more recent, slightly lighter green sign. (Again, we don’t know who or why it was added/replaced, but it appears to have been done.)

Furthermore, it appears that the new, slightly lighter green הרמתי (“Arimathea”) sign wasn’t enough to convince viewers, so for the close up of the buzzer, an ADDITIONAL, much larger, handwritten הרמתי (“Arimathea”) sign was placed next to the doorbell with the slightly greener doorbell sign on it, AND, all of the other doorbell signs were obscured. Again, the side-by-side images on Dr. West’s blog clearly show that a larger “Arimathea” sign has been added to the doorbell for the documentary close-up.

Also note that all of this supposed “evidence” is referred to by the documentary as an “omen,” as if the fact that someone named הרמתי (“Arimathea”) lived in this apartment for the past 2000 years, and that fact is further evidence that the tomb beneath the East Jerusalem apartment is the tomb of Jesus.

But let’s be honest – that’s IMPOSSIBLE given the fact that:

It appears the הרמתי (“Arimathea”) signs were added/replaced more recently than the remainder of the mailbox and doorbell signs

The apartment has only been around since around 1980! Remember the tomb was DISCOVERED when construction workers were building the new apartment in East Talpiot (or Armon HaNetziv), East Jerusalem, a West Bank neighborhood that was annexed by Israel following the Six Day War. The apartment is only a few decades old, and the הרמתי (“Arimathea”) signs appear to be even more recent than that.

And yet, this is all some sort of “omen” that Simcha and his camera crew are on the right track in finding the “Tomb of Jesus” – just like Simcha repeatedly suggests (see the 1:40 and 8:43 marks in this interview with Drew Marshall) that the “timing” of the Talpiot Tomb discoveries themselves are some sort of more-than-coincidental, “strange” omen, and not the product of a well-organized production schedule and press campaign designed to broadcast documentaries in the weeks before and after Easter.

This is all literallyun-believable.

So, not only does this “Joseph of Arimathea” segment appear to have been deleted/edited out of the American 60-minute version of the film (which would explain the absence of any “evidence” for Joseph of Arimathea despite the multiple reference to Joseph of Arimathea throughout the documentary, but it also appears to have been set-up (at least the larger הרמתי sign) specifically for the documentary.

Camera tricks involving lighting, angles, zooming, and framing/cropping to support a claim, which are contradicted by subsequently released photos of the same object. Where have we seen this before? Unfortunately, it appears to be a systemic problem of the entire expedition, and the credibility and integrity of all of the images involved with the documentary are damaged by these quite amateurish camera tricks.

April 26, 2012 – Jim West is reporting that in the Canadian 90-minute version of the documentary, there IS, in fact, a segment dedicated to the signs on the apartment mailbox and buzzer that have little signs that say הרמתי, or “Arimathea” on them.

The green sign above mailbox 4 appears to be a little different shade of green than the rest of the green mailbox signs. Likewise, the little green sign to the left of the buzzer seems to be a slightly lighter shade of green than the rest of the buzzer signs. A screen capture image of the apartment mailbox and buzzer system from the Canadian The Jesus Discovery documentary appears to reveal that the small green doorbell sign that read “Arimathea” may have been added/replaced more recently than the other signs above and below it (which would explain the slightly different color and typeset/font).

What is more, note that when the camera zooms in on the buzzer, there appears to be an animated over-sized sign that reads הרמתי, which is blown up so large that it now partially covers the speaker!!! Likewise, the names of the other folks appear to be blank, while the enhanced הרמתי sign is clearly visible.

So, based upon this comparative evidence, I shall speculate (and mind you this is only speculation) the following:

It appears that someone replaced the standard/old green sign (that appear on nearly all of the other mailboxes) on the apartment #4 mailbox with a more recent, slightly lighter green הרמתי (“Arimathea”) sign in a slightly different typeset/font. (We don’t know who or why it was added/replaced, but it appears to have been done.)

It appears that someone replaced one of the smaller standard/old green doorbell/buzzer signs (that appear next to nearly all of the other doorbells) with a more recent, slightly lighter green sign. (Again, we don’t know who or why it was added/replaced, but it appears to have been done.)

Furthermore, it appears that the new, slightly lighter green הרמתי (“Arimathea”) sign wasn’t enough to convince viewers, so for the close up of the buzzer, an ADDITIONAL zoom of a much larger, possibly handwritten(?) הרמתי (“Arimathea”) sign was placed next to the doorbell with the slightly greener doorbell sign beside it, AND, all of the other doorbell signs are somewhat obscured. Again, the side-by-side images on Dr. West’s blog clearly show that a larger “Arimathea” sign has been digitally zoomed next to the doorbell for the documentary close-up.

Also note that all of this supposed “evidence” is referred to by the documentary as an “omen,” as if the fact that someone named הרמתי (“Arimathea”) lived in this apartment for the past 2000 years, and that fact is supposedly further evidence that the tomb beneath the East Jerusalem apartment is the tomb of Jesus.

But let’s be honest – that’s IMPOSSIBLE given the fact that:

It appears the הרמתי (“Arimathea”) signs were added/replaced more recently than the remainder of the mailbox and doorbell signs.

The apartment has only been around since around 1980! Remember the tomb was DISCOVERED when construction workers were building the new apartment in East Talpiot (or Armon HaNetziv), East Jerusalem, a West Bank neighborhood that was annexed by Israel following the Six Day War. The apartment is only a few decades old, and the הרמתי (“Arimathea”) signs appear to be even more recent than that. Now, it could very well be the case that a new family coincidentally named “Arimathea” moved into the apartment after everyone else (which would explain the replaced, slightly lighter green signs), but I would consider this to be highly coincidental, and certainly would not be evidence that the tomb beneath the apartment has been in the “Arimathea” family since the first century.

And yet, this is all some sort of “omen” that Simcha and his camera crew are on the right track in finding the “Tomb of Jesus.” This is similar to other suggestions Simcha has made in the past, like those he made in this interview with Drew Marshall (see the 1:40 and 8:43 marks), where he suggests that the “timing” of the Talpiot Tomb discoveries themselves was some sort of more-than-coincidental, “strange” omen, and not the product of a well-organized production schedule and press campaign designed to broadcast documentaries in the weeks before and after Easter.

This is all literally UN-believable.

So, not only does this “Joseph of Arimathea” segment appear to have been deleted/edited out of the American 60-minute version of the film (which would explain the absence of any “evidence” for Joseph of Arimathea despite the multiple reference to Joseph of Arimathea throughout the documentary), but it also appears to have been enhanced (at least the digitally enlarged הרמתי sign) specifically for the documentary.

It appears we have yet another example of camera tricks involving lighting, angles, zooming, and framing to support a particular claim, which is then contradicted by subsequently released photos of the same object. Unfortunately, it appears to be a systemic problem of the entire expedition, and the credibility and integrity of all of the images involved with the documentary are damaged by these quite amateurish camera tricks and film making blunders.